First Things has on its website a blogger who goes by the moniker, "The Anchoress." She is very lucid and recently wrote a post that is mind-blowing. Her language is simple, straightforward, and so elegant. Her theme important. Her thesis correct, I believe. And she provides excellent guidance for understanding President Obama and what we are to do about him, as Christians; at least, part of what we are to do about him.
Here it is.
The White House is refusing to discuss the funding of elective abortions with federal money, instead insisting - against all reports - that the Hyde Amendment will apply and so the question is moot. Don't trust them; read this instead. What the White House is not telling the American people, who overwhelmingly disapprove of government funding for abortion, is that the House health care plan under consideration will do just that.
Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post just printed online this article concerning the Obama-Notre Dame fiasco. What strikes me is that this (by her own admission, unemphatic) pro-choice writer sorts through the issue very evenhandedly and in a way sympathetic to Holy Church. She applauds Prof. Glendon's recent decision to refuse the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame, so as not to share a platform with Obama, and so as not to legitimate the honors to be given him. She works through the question of why this issue is so important to us (Catholics), and what the President might do in order to display goodwill, tact, and poise.
Let's hope he does it, because the administration of Notre Dame hasn't the sense anymore. An alternative scenario would be a large-scale boycott of the commencement exercises by the graduating class. That would send an excellent and powerful message to both the President and to Notre Dame's administration.
Check out this very interesting news summary of an interview between Francis Cardinal George, the Archbishop of Chicago, and President Obama.
http://www.lifenews.com/nat5001.html
It seems the President has convinced himself that he is pro-life and agrees with the Cardinal on life issues. The Cardinal wasn't so sure. The Cardinal points out that he is, at the very least, intent on paying his political debts to the abortion lobby and just doesn't know what to do about the babies. Didn't Obama say once that dealing with babies was above his pay grade?
My speculation is not that President Obama thinks that abortion is swell (although he clearly cannot think it is that bad), but rather that he knows what is expedient, and is incapable of the risk of failure and rejection demanded by sustained sincerity. We have to remember that he is not the enemy of the pro-Life movement, nor of authentic Christianity, but is doubtless deeply in the thrall of our Enemy. Let's keep praying for him, and let's not forget the Cardinal, the babies, and those others on the frontlines.
Bishop D'Arcy is the diocesan bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, the diocese that includes the University of Notre Dame among its local Catholic institutions. Notre Dame decided some time ago to invite our nation's president to speak as commencement speaker and receive an honorary juris doctorate. In the resulting flurry of fury, laity have formed petitions, bishops have written positions, and Notre Dame has gone on the defensive. The university's president has tried some Nancy Pelosi-style scheistiness, i.e., redefining terms and pretending to teach the teachers of our Church.
Here is Bishop D'Arcy's response to Notre Dame's actions, firstly, its awarding of an honorary law degree of a man who advocates maintaining and advancing laws to permit and enable the murder of babies (and God knows who else) under the pretext of personal autonomy; secondly, mouthing off to our nation's bishops and telling them, in essence, that they didn't know what they meant when they wrote the document "Catholics in Political Life," regarding the relationship of Catholic institutions with political personalities.
Firstly, Bishop D'Arcy reminds Fr. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, that according to canon law and the entire tradition of the Church, the local diocesan bishop (Bishop D'Arcy) and no other is the authoritative teacher and lawgiver, and thus interpreter of laws, for everyone in his diocese. Only to Rome can appeal be made. And the opinions of whatever canonists and bishops Jenkins claims to have consulted, well, are simply irrelevant. Bishop D'Arcy then recognizes that Notre Dame has pulled off a fait accompli without so much as consulting him, and officially advises the university that he isn't happy about it. At all. He lastly notes that a serious rift has developed between Notre Dame and the Church, a rift that is primarily Notre Dame's responsibility to heal.
The kicker in all this, it strikes me, is that the Democrats have been DYING to get someone in Catholic officialdom to support them so they can claim the moral highroad, or something. (I think, frankly, that their consciences eat at them, and they are desperate to soothe them.) Think of Nancy Pelosi trying to get a photo-op with the Holy Father, who very skillfully denied her the opportunity to appear with him in public. Now Notre Dame, one of the most prestigious Catholic universities in the world and certainly the country, has given this morally depraved rascal an honorary degree of law - which can be seen as nothing, if not an approval of his way of legal thinking.
Ryan Matthew Haber
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